I find meaning everywhere. Not just in books and music and movies and myths, but in moments I witness as I stroll through this world.
Meaning. Clues to Life. Reassurance. Omens good & bad. All over the place.
When I was all of twenty-four, I moved to NYC for the first time, pretty much sight unseen. I had stood on the tarmac at JFK once when I was seventeen and looked out to see the silhouette of the Twin Towers in the distance, but that was as close as I had ever come to Gotham. I stared at those towers like they were a distant castle in an enchanted kingdom. I ached to move there.
I had wanted to move to NYC for as long as I could remember. The first time I saw the original King Kong, around 5 years old, as I watched my favorite simian stomp his way through the Big Apple, I thought to myself "I am going to live there when I grow up".
I never really grew up, but I did get older. Went to college. Found theatre. became a theatre major my third year. Graduated at 24, went to the Barn Theatre and got my Equity card, got a tour for a dance show to Japan, came back home to San Jose, California, loaded up my little Hyundai Excel, and headed East.
I got there on Halloween.
And the shit hit the fan in every way possible. I was broke. Alone. And for the only prolonged time in my life (so far) depressed. I felt like I had somehow fucked up my journey. Like my spirit guides had all abandoned me. I was the poorest, and skinniest, I have ever been. The cheapest thing I could do for entertainment was go to the MET, which was free for people who lived in the city.
And I came upon this painting of a girl, lost. Like crazy lost. No hope. What the fuck will I do now?
It cut me to the core. I had no idea what the painting was of, only that I felt exactly like the girl. Lost. Confused. Doomed. Turned out to be a painting of Joan of Arc, right when she hears the voices for the first time. It's intense.
I found meaning. Clarity. Beauty wrapped in sorrow. I was still depressed and lost, but a tiny bit less lonely.
Recently, we went to Disneyland. I never went there growing up so it's always held a sort of sacred magic.
Never is not quite accurate. I did go there when I was about four, for one day, with my father, shortly after he and my mom split up. I remember the Haunted Mansion, the rocket ride, and Pirates of the Caribbean. It was the last time going there until I was seventeen. The Mix of having gone once with a father who I would not see again until I was twenty-eight, mixed with not going again for my entire childhood, gave the whole place a mystique that remains to this very day. I walk into the Magic Kingdom, and I am good, the world is just and kind and fair.
However, on the last trip, I noticed something about Pirates.
It's really a descent into Hell. Not in a bad way. More like I'm Dante, and the ghost of Virgil is taking me on a tour of the Inferno. We start on a boat. We float through a bayou at dusk. A banjo plays in a beat up old shack. I imagine an old pirate, playing one last tune before checking out. We enter darkness. A talking skull warns us we are about to see some weird shit. Then we drop off a waterfall, go through a cave full of strange colors, drop down another waterfall, and come upon a beach with a couple of skeletons. A seagull sits on the head of one, a crab waves its claws at another. I am fairy certain the gull and crab house the souls that once filled those skeletons, and they are realizing they are now dead and stuck on a beach in Hell. Next, we pass a weird bar, full of more skeletons. A pair of them play chess, stuck in stalemate forever. Another sits at the bar, holding up a bottle that pours clear liquid into into the skeletal mouth. The liquid turns red as it flows into the empty body. And the thirsty bag of bones never quinces its thirst. A Pirate Tantalus. Next, we meet another skeleton, trying to escape an eternal storm.
And then shit gets really weird. We float into a room full of treasure. A well dressed skeleton lays in bed, looking through a magnifying glass at nothing, searching for a clue like a spooky Pirate Sherlock Holmes. And a voice tells us we are now cursed for having seen the treasure. Then we pass a skeletal torso in a glass case, that becomes human as we pass it.
And now we are with the dead, lost in their memories, playing out their mistakes and misdeeds over and over and over. Battles. Late night drinking parties where we end up talking to cats and pigs, or scream at each other, or tie things to frightened people whose homes we have just destroyed. On and on, each scene stranger than the one before. Finally, we go through a burned up ship, past some shockingly drunk pirated shooting at each other while surrounded by boxes of gun powder, and then the final thing we see is a rather detached, lost Jack Sparrow mumbling about how we are all pirates.
And a voice tells us Dead Men Do Tell Tales.
And we, the Dead, are sent back to the world.
Maybe I read too much into things, but that's just how I'm wired.
Today, I find meaning in my morning walk. In my coffee. In writing this blog.
Now I am off, to explore America via a pilot that is a a variation of an old script of mine called "Lunatics and Assholes".
Perhaps I shall get it made, and some young lost soul will watch it and find meaning.
Perhaps.
And now, a tune for your listening pleasure. It's the first track from this album I love so much when I was in college, a collection of Disney tunes reimagined by Hal Willner and performed by some musical luminaires. This is Stay Awake, by Suzzane Vega. It's creepy and cool.
Sometimes, oftentimes, now times, I wake with this feeling of existential dread. Or what I think existential dread is. I get up early, almost every day. Usually it's around 5:30, but on days off I might not manage to get out of bed until 6:30 or even 7:00. Not that I don't wake up. The waking time is so ingrained in my soul I just wake up. Then I lie there, thinking about... everything. Life and meaning and death and worries and money and friends and theatre and jobs. Does any of it matter? Do I matter? Have I made the right choices to get here?
I suppose it's kind of stupid, crazy, and wrong to do so.
But there it is.
What's strange is I think I love being alive more than almost anyone I know. I love the warmth of the blankets over me when I wake and ponder. I love going downstairs while Lisa sleeps, making coffee, the world still dark, the heater coming on, getting my journal out. This morning, even with my usual companions of questions about what it all means, I am at the same time I'm glooming and dooming, I am reveling in the luxury of being able to do so.
I am so spoiled.
There are so many parts of this world, so many people, where getting up, putting the kettle on, and feeling lost and confused for a moment would no doubt be a miracle. We have a world full of angst, danger, hunger, and uncertainty.
But I do feel these things, and have to honor them, deal with them, seek perspective and move on.
My life is like my writing. At times effortless, at times impossible. But always sustaining my soul. Even when it's not so great. Even when it is repetitive, derivative and dull. When none of the characters surprise me, the plot feels predictable, and I find no wonder.
Oh, who am I kidding? I love all of it. I love being a version of Eeyore for a bit, because most of the time I am the Pooh.
And yes, I realize I just wrote that I am the shit.
Well, sometimes I am.
I am not short, but kind of fat, and proud of that.
I am writing today for many reasons. But one of the best is that a friend, a former student who I don't get to see so often because they had the audacity of growing up, sent me a text with a song they thought I would like to listen to while writing in my blog.
I think that's the one of the best things about writing. Because, now and then, when the Writing Gods are generous, you can manage to say something that resonates with at least one other human being.
I get all sorts of emails, from every possible place. I have over 180,000 unread emails, most of them semi-spam shit about some product I once looked at or bought, some show I should see, a political plea for money, and on and on. Truly amazing amount of bullshit, floating out in the ether, waiting to be read with the hope I will send money or do something like that. I also get a lot of news articles, announcements, and helpful hints on how to live my life. I can't blame all the sites that send me these things. And I'm not talking about my junk folder, which I rarely look at. Junk folder is like the junk drawer we had in the kitchen when I was a kid. An overstuffed thing full of odd devices, old recipes, broken buy maybe save-able doo-dads. To put your hand in it would be to hazard getting cut, or a finger eaten by some strange beast living in the upper regions of that drawer, in the area impossible to get to because the drawer was always broken and could only open so much.
But I digress.
Today, I opened one of those random emails in my regular inbox. (Email, for those of you who only use Insta or Snapchat to communicate, is an old timey way of sending electronic messages to one another.) In that random email was a thought of the day. I've been getting these for a few months now. Fairly certain I clicked something, somewhere, and thus the daily emails from somewhere with this salient thought:
"What you do today can improve all your tomorrows"
Wow. That's some deep thinking there. And, as obvious as that is, worthy of a Hallmark card or poster in a primary school office, there's is truth in it. A truth I often manage to forget, ignore, ridicule in blog posts, or down right actively try to ingore.
Today, I can work on the outline for the pilot I've been working on for a few years now. Or the opening monologue for the podcast I wrote that is recording in the next few weeks. I can memorize lines for a show that I am in that goes up next week. Clean the house. Take a walk. Call old friends.
So much.
Yet, here I am, on a chilly Monday President's Day, still in my pajamas well past nine, finishing a blog post I started around 7 but left to go make coffee, discuss the finale of True Detective: Night County with my wife, put on some tunes, contemplate getting Bagels at Rosenbergs.
I have tools to improve my tomorrows. And my todays. Farting about, interacting with my wife, listening to music, walking through the neighborhood. This is important stuff too. Maybe it's not what I do, but how I do it, and how I let that inform my ideas of what is worth while, that counts. That improves things.
And I am all for improvement. But what does that mean? More money? A cleaner house? Getting that screenplay sold? Is improvement more about being able to get the most out of this shockingly short life?
Yeah.
That's got to be it.
So. Today, I'm going to try and be alive. All day.
And hopefully that will improve all my tomorrows, yesterdays, and todays.
Here's a song. It's really weird, and I found it on an Instagram post. It's Prisencolinensinanciusol by Adriano Celentano. Listening to it will make all your tomorrows better.
Home with Covid this week. Almost seems retro. Like most of life, it is surreal and odd, perhaps an illusion or dream a butterfly is having. Of course, this could be the Covid talking, deceiving, tricking. In any event, I am stuck at home, and so I am finally putting away the last of the Christmas decorations, catching up on shows I need to catch up on, writing projects, and the final edit of my latest short film, which is a combo short film that stands on its own and a proof of concept, meaning a short meant to indicate what a feature version of this would be like. Plus I have to do a new draft of a podcast episode that is set to record in the next month with an air date sometime in the fall. A scary tale of the North Woods.
I'm rambling, like a lost hiker in a strange forest.
And I like it.
Shows I am catching up on:
The Traitors, on Peacock. It's a reality show set in a Scottish castle where a bunch of terrible people, most of whom have been on other reality shows, perform various tasks for money, and have to contend with the fact that there are secret traitors in their midst, plotting their demise. It's sort of a glorified version of the game Mafia, which I have played with many a theatre class over the years. The show is hosted by Alan Cumming. It's really fun, the scenery is beautiful, and Alan Cumming is just the best. As a bonus, the castle is just north of Inverness, which we were lucky enough to visit last summer, and one of the great joys in life is seeing some place you've been to on tv.
True Detective: Night Country, on Max. This is a fucked up story about a bunch of fucked up people in a fucked up part of the world, which I am quite familiar with. Alaska, land of the Midnight Sun and Midnight Souls, lost people who either have had their entire culture and history violated by intruders, or the intruders and their progeny, who mostly live their to be as far away as possible from wherever they came from. I'm sure there are happy, well balanced people up there. I just didn't meet that many. Especialy way up north. It's where I found my father when I was 28. A huge, dangerous country. The show is chock full of the supernatural, alludes to things like the Dyatlov Pass Incident, Murder, and mythology. The writing is tight, the imagery creepy and beautiful, and I can't get enough.
The podcast episode is based on a short play I wrote a while back that has since morphed into a pilot I am currently working on. The pilot is totally different, but the podcast is basically the play mooshed into a radio play format. It's titled "Alma's Anomalies", and is about a pair of slackers, ill equipped in every possible sense of the word, who journey to the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior in the hopes of resurrecting a ghost. Sadly for them, they succeed. The story is set to air on Coffee Contrails. More info to come soon.
The short, Burning the Old Man, is based on my play of the same name. The play has been my most successful writing project to date, and has been produced all over the world, in NYC, Prague, Sao Paolo, and various other places. It even had a run a few years ago up in Boulder at CU, which was conveniently located for me. The short takes the soul of the play, boils it down to its essence, cooks it for a few months at a high heat, and now is ready to serve. It is the first film from McSquared Productions, my new film company I've formed with my great friend Tim McCracken. It features an original score by Bob D'Haene and Matt Vogel, who are fucking awesome. More info on that soon too.
So, my thought for the day, as I sit, housebound and wanting to get out, is this. I think we manage to keep our minds closed to most of what is going on, most of the time. We create our explanation of existence, which seem to be variations on either "the world is terrible" and "the world is fantastic", all the while ignoring events as they unfold in real time. (if such a thing as time exists. I'm going with our existence being real, for the sake of this blog entry) The world has all sorts of shit in it. good and bad and bold and beautiful. Music, nature, violence, sorrow, death, birth, and on and on. We bounce through it all, and I think we need to experience it all completely, with as few filters as we can manage. I realize sometimes we need to keep some of it out. But I think we keep too much out too often.
Now that I've written that down, it doesn't sound as deep as it did while I was laying in bed ruminating.
Ah well. Two songs today. Into Dust by Mazzie Star, which was featured in episode four of Night Country and which I first came across while dealing with my mother dying. It both comforts me in the loneliness and makes me want to cry yet again. The other is Hallelujah by D'Haene. It is featured in the short of Burning the Old Man. Enjoy.
And another Sunday arrives, freezing cold. Like below zero cold. Like, what the fuck is happening with the weather cold? I am not sure how anyone can continue to pretend that the world's climate- our world, the place where we live and walk and go to the mountains and beaches and skip and have general fun when we can- is in crisis mode.
Is it denialism, fear, subservience to the powers that be, some odd form of Stockholm Syndrome?
I like this planet. I think it's rather beautiful. I like winter to be cold but not crazy. I like snow capped mountains, clear skies, animals running free. All that. I'm what you might call a nature boy.
I also like summer to not be one long session of sweating, watching the world wither. Smelling smoke in the air, sometimes from fires that are gigantic, so massive that even though they are thousands of miles away, the smoke makes its way to my neighborhood.
So why isn't Climate front and center in the upcoming election?
Whomever wins, this is important.
It is not a hoax. And saying it is doesn't make it so. I can go outside. I can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. And every one of my five senses tells me, on a daily basis, something is wrong.
What is it going to take? An army of Lorax, leaping out of the all too many tree stumps out there, driven mad with frustration, running through the street, screaming "I am the Lorax, fuckers!" while gleefully decapitating everyone that come across?
I'm cranky today. I think I have a cold coming on.
Be that as it may, I want you all to consider our little planet. I want you to cherish it.
Because I'm selfish. I love my planet. I want to to be around for as long as possible. Yes, millions of years from now, it will be engulfed by the Sun. So what? Just because we are all set to expire one day doesn't mean we sit around smacking ourselves in the head with a hammer.
Okay. Rant over. For now. Watch some football. Grab a cup of coffee with someone you enjoy, or alone. Read a book, a graphic novel, the tea leaves. Do something for yourself.
And enjoy.
Here's a song. It's Jack White doing a cover of Mother Nature's Son by The Beatles.
I'm standing on the shore of Shaver Lake, California, high in the Sierra Nevada. It's the last full day of Camp Chawanakee. I'm 14 years old, surrounded by hundreds of fellow Boy Scouts, watching my troop lose, by a lot, in a row boat race. The boats are these metal row boats we all use to get our rowing merit badge, and can also check out during camp to head out to Thunderbird Island. There are about ten boats in the water. The race is to row out with a crew of four to a buoy in the lake, circle it, and come back. My buddy Jay is in the boat. He's two years younger than me, but my best friend. We met on a kayak trip, discovered a mutual love of the Stones, the Kinks, and other stalwarts of what is now called classic rock but was to us back then simply music we dug. Jay is the funniest kid I have ever met. And always does shit you would not expect. He looks like a miniature businessman to me most of the time. Short hair, horn-rimmed glasses, a resting face that looks like he is considering the stock market. But he is the antithesis of that. He is the kid who will convince you to sneak out at night and toilet paper someone's house. To sneak a beer out of the parent's fridge. And the entire time, you laugh your ass off as you do something that will for sure get you in trouble. For instance, once, while we were hanging out at his folks place, he thought it would be fun for us to take his dad's Cherokee Chief out for a spin. He was 12, so of course he drove. How we didn't get noticed and pulled over is still a mystery to me, but a lot of the grown-up world seemed crazy then, and still does to this day, so it wasn't all that nuts. When we finally returned to his house, his father was waiting for us in the garage. And we lived to tell the tale.
So there I am, on the shore, watching Troop 339, the pride of the Pioneer District, getting lapped by several other boats.
And I see Jay look over at the boat in the lead.
And I know exactly what he is planning to do.
Because when you're tight with someone, that's how it goes.
Jay puts down his oar, stands up, and leaps out of the boat, swims to the winning boat, grabs the side, and manages to flip it over. The scouts in the boat leap out, into the water, and the winning boat is now upside down.
Everyone in the race is able to swim, and are all wearing life jackets, so we are fairly certain no one is going to die.
There is a moment of silence, and then the entire crowd roars with laughter. It's just too funny not to. I don't know why. Maybe it's because something about the look on Jay's face makes it clear he isn't a sore loser, he is just not having it anymore. He sees the ridiculousness of his situation and has decided to change it.
The kids from the now upside down boat swim over to Jay's boat and flip it over.
In an instant, everyone in the race is out of their boat, flipping other boats over and howling with joy.
I have this image burned in my brain of Jay standing on the back of the boat he flipped as it sinks into Shaver Lake's murky depths. His hands are raised over his head, and he is, for that moment, a God of Chaos here on Earth.
And we lived to tell that tale too. It probably helped that the lake wasn't too deep where the race took place, and all boats were retrieved.
Some shit you just can't make up.
So now, it's here. Today. And Jay is fighting another ridiculous situation. One involving cancer. And I want him to leap out of his boat and swim and sink that fucking boat.
If there is anyone in this universe who can do that, it's Jay.
Here's a song. It's Jumping Jack Flash by The Stones.
A New Year. Lots coming up. Shows. Short Film. An election that could lead to the end of America. All sorts of shit. I'm directing seven plays between now and June. Producing a large budget show that goes up end of June. Teaching playwriting at the Denver Center.
Life, as always, chugs along. Sometimes, of late, I wake with this feeling of existential dread. Like, what is the meaning of any of this? Which I know is not productive. As far as I can tell, my little brain is not equipped to process, figure out, or solve the Riddle of Being Alive. Still, now and then, I get the blues, the why-am-I-here blues. And I think. And play Greig or Simon and Garfunkel or Phoebe Bridgers, and go through it.
And what's really amazing, and to me miraculous, is that this simple act of allowing my self to wallow in self pity and dread for a bit sort of exorcises those demons. It douses the vampire with sunlight.
It gets me going again.
I do not know how long life is, for me or anyone else. I don't know why we are here, or where we will go, if anywhere, once it's time to do the Mortal Coil Shuffle. I just know I love it here. I love clouds and music and dogs and cats and coffee and friends and my wife and my home. I love writing stories, and showing kids how to pretend to be a goblin in the Battle of the Five Armies.
I love all of it.
I don't think this makes me heroic. I am fairly certain I was just born this way.
And I must be a bit of an egotist, because I write about all this in my blog sporadically, and in my journal every single day.
I wouldn't do it if it didn't make me feel good. But does doing something to feel good justify it? I suppose that has to be taken on a case by case basis.
So.
2024. Goals. Resolutions. Hopes and dreams. All that jazz.
I hope to read more books. I'm reading a new translation of Homer's The Odyssey by Emily Wilson that is just fantastic. I hope to use it to fuel one of my new projects, a pilot set in the world of another project, Lunatics and Assholes, that I really love.
I hope to finish the color and sound of my new short, Burning the Old Man, which is a proof of concept for a feature that I made with my dear friend Tim McCracken. We shot it in the fall, mostly down in Gunnison, and it was fucking awesome. Is fucking awesome. Once it's done, we plan to enter it into several film festivals, and also send it to some producers we know, with the goal of getting funding to make the feature. All we need is someone to put up 500K to 10 million. Which seems absurd, yet there it is.
How did I get to a place where that kind of money is in the mix? No idea. But I won't question it. I'll just move ahead, hope for the best, and keep writing, directing, producing, teaching. Being me.
I hope to travel more. Going to Edinburgh last summer reawakened my wanderlust. The world is not one oyster, but a constantly refilling, huge bowl full of them. And they come in all sizes, and flavors. And I am famished.
I hope to go to more theatre, see more movies, hear more music, hike more paths, dream more dreams.
And I hope to write on this blog at least once a week.
Okay. That's now a thing. I will write in this blog once a week.
I now go off to make breakfast, get ready for tech rehearsal, then work on script for new show about Shakespeare, then hopefully catch a few more episodes of The Offer, on Paramount, which is an amazing show and I encourage you all to watch it.
Here's a song. It's Northern Attitude by Noah Kahan & Hozier. I dig it.
So a while back, my good friend Tim, who I have known forever and who is one of the few people on this planet I trust completely without question, and someone whom I love completely, suggested we make some movies together. This sounded both crazy, daunting, and perfect. So I said yes.
Or, to be more exact, "Fuck Yeah!"
We had worked on many projects in the past, from a nine hour, three part theatre adaptation of East of Eden at the Western Stage in Salinas to a production of Richard II in NYC to my first, and up to that point only, short film, Strong Tea. He was also the lead in my most successful play to date, Burning the Old Man.
That's us in the photo above. Back in the day. Young and crazy. NYC. Cigarettes and beers after a long day slinging hash between acting gigs. Having the time of our lives.
So, there we were having coffee at one of our haunts here in Denver, talking about life and theatre and film. Tim had just made a movie, Publish or Perish, that is kicking ass in the festival circuit and is now available to stream on Amazon. I was in the middle of yet another script- a pilot I was finishing before the deadline for the Austin Film Festival. And that's when Tim popped the question, so to speak.
Yes, I used the phrase "popped the question", the classic phrase for proposing marriage. Let's face it. Making a movie is a commitment up there with marriage. You pledge your heart and soul. For it to work, you have to bare your soul. Be vulnerable. Improvise when problems arise. Be flexible.
So he asked, I said yes, and then it was time to think of a project.
We wanted to make something that could be both a short, and also a proof of concept for a full length movie. And we wanted to take advantage of where we live, with all this natural beauty surrounding us.
And Burning the Old Man popped up almost immediately. A story about two estrange brothers taking their father's ashes on a road trip to Burning Man, as per his dying request. Their relationship with their father was difficult, and their relationship with each other even more so. As such, their road trip is full of recrimination, anxiety, and tension, with a tragic sense of loss tuck under a veneer of comedy. Tim had played Marty, the older brother in the original play, and we both felt he should do so again.
So I wrote up a script, we kicked it around, adjusted the story as needed, gathered a crew of dedicated geniuses, and set some dates.
And the magic began. We kept having things happen that just seemed to be signs we were doing the right thing. A friend offered us a hotel up in the mountains to use as our base for the main stretch of shooting. Another friend just happened to live in that same area and offered to scout locations.
And what locations! Colorado is so pretty, so majestic and huge and full of wonder. And most of the time, I manage to not see it. But not on the shoot.
I really wanted to just talk about this one moment from the shoot today. It happened at there rocks in the high desert, during the climatic moment of the movie. These two brothers, who have been bickering like children for the past 24 hours, have ended up on this precipice, screaming at each other and having a tuh of war over the bag containing their father's ashes. As written, the bag rips open, the ashes fly, and the brother's dumbfounded at what their stupid fighting has wrought, stare at each other as their father's remains float away.
On the day of the shoot, we were all a bit tired. We'd shot for 14 hours the day before. Drew, the actor playing Bobby, the younger brother, was not feeling well. Even so, we were all amped. We were making something that felt good, felt right. Felt like what we had all chosen to do with our lives.
And we get to the scene. Now, to prefect, we had talked a lot about the brother's relationship the past few days. How underneath all the hurt and anger there was a deep love. A heartbroken love. A longing to connect like that had once been able to effortlessly but now seemed impossible.
So we get to the big moment. The point when the bag rips and the ashes fly.
The first take, a long shot, goes great. We get a safety shot, then move in for a closer shot.
And when the bag rips, Drew almost falls off the rocks. For a moment, I think "Shit! I just killed Drew!" Everyone freezes.
Except Tim.
He instinctively grabs Drew, pulls him up. And then, in character, Tim impulsively hugs Drew. Or rather, Marty impulsively hugs Bobby. We keep rolling. Nobody on set is making a sound. But we all feel connected to what is happening. Bobby tries to break free of the hug. Marty keeps hugging. It's really touching and sad and real. After a beat, Bobby hugs his brother back.
And we all start hotting and hollering. Something had happened. Something unexpected but totally real.
Then everyone looks at me. "Do we keep it?" they all ask, in various ways. It is quite different than the ending as written. Changes the trajectory a little. But it feels so right.
And I have to make a decision. It's my script. I'm co-director of this with Tim. Also co-producer. It's my call.
And I go with it. Tweak the script slightly.
We finish. And it is clear to me that the movie has now become more than it was.
And that I am learning more than I could have possibly hoped for when we started making this movie.
Now we are in post. Editing. Mixing. All that type of thing.
We hope to send it to festivals. To show it to some producers who will shower us with money so we can make the full length film.
But no matter what, I have gained from this experience.
Here's a song. It's one of my all time favorites. Pale Green Things by The Mountain Goats.
First preview here in Edinburgh yesterday. A city full of magic of all sorts. Theatrical. Architectural. Historical.
And the human variety.
Human magic is the strangest of all the arcane arts, the most complex. At times, obvious as palming a coin behind your hand as you wow the locals with your prestidigitation. At others, murkier and more unpredictable than the weather in this ancient city that looks like it's the bastard child of J.K. Rowling and William Shakespeare. I would say minus that sadder aspects of that comparison, the uglier sides of both of those writers world views. But I'd be lying. There is both wonder and sorrow here. Same as everywhere.
Yesterday, we were getting ready to debut at the Edinburgh Fringe. To say the cast and crew were exhilarated would be a great understatement. We started the day with a little press interview with Fringe Biscuit. Always exciting to discuss your show with the press. We went, pitched out show as charmingly as humanly possible, and ventured off.
We had things to do. A run through of the play at one of our postage stamp sized flats. A mad search for some stools for the show. The usual madness that comes before a show opens, cramming a week into a day, a day into an hour, and hour into a moment.
And then it was time to get ready and head to the Royal Mile, where our theatre is.
Cooper, one of my dearest friends and also one of the leads in the show, and I decided to get some coffee, headed over, had some lattes made "take away", which is how they say to go here in Scotland. On the way back to our flats to meet the cast and walk, there was a commotion across the street. A couple of people were gathered around a woman sitting on the sidewalk, back against the ancient wall, not moving. Most of the people seemed either drunk or high or some combination. The emotions shot out from them in all directions like a volley of damaged arrows.
I wanted to walk on. I had a show to do.
I couldn't.
I walk over to them, and one of the men tells me the woman is dead. The woman kneeling next to the body screams "she's breathing!" Another man asks me to help. Another man holds his dog back, who is barking to wake the devil. The devil may have woken, but the lady slept on. I ask the group what number to call for an ambulance, as I'm an American. Some of them throw up their arms in despair at this. An American? Now we are fucked for sure. But I get the number. 999. An upside Mark of the Beast. By now, another Fringe goer, a man named James, joins the fray. The 999 operator picks up, and I can barely hear her as things are spiraling quickly into a mad whirl. At every second, at least three people are yelling things at me about the state of the body.
I should mention. The Lady of the Wall, the Sleeper Who Will Not Awake, She Who Had No Name, does indeed look dead to me. Her skin has turned grey. Her mouth hangs open. Her legs are stiff.
I am frightened and falling through time and space but unable to be anywhere but right there.
The operator somehow hears me. I give our location. She asks me if the Lady is dead. I say no. She asks me if I am sure. I am not, but I say yes, she's still alive because I think it will get the ambulance there quicker.
James puts his hand over her jaw open mouth, says he can feel a breath.
The operator asks me is the Lady is conscious.
No.
She tells us to lay her out flat on the ground, head on the sidewalk, and for me to say "now" for every breath the Lady Takes, and I do.
Now.
Now.
Now.
There are strange intervals of time between the breathes. The span between each breath a chasm of despair. The Lady's grey face seems a mystic death mask of a tragic queen.
And the ambulance arrives, and people who know far better than I take over.
And in a miracle, The Lady Wakes.
One of the Howling Men turns to me, says thank you, tells me how most people don't stop.
I know that. Like most of us, I have been The Person Who Doesn't Stop in other chapters of my life.
And then he says:
My names Michael, but they call me Magic. I'm a Magician, you see.
Then he leans in close, with the saddest face in the history of this moment, confesses to me:
I've been on smack for twenty years now.
I walk away, join Cooper, who has been there the whole time. Coop tells me he stayed to make sure I was okay, gives me a hug, and we journey on.
I suddenly feel like crying. I tell the cast to meet me at the theatre, head out.
And as I walk the lovely, lonely streets of this town, I think about what's important. What if anything has any meaning. Why do we do theatre, create stories and songs, dance with each other.
And the world opens up to me. Each step fills my soul with an intense love of this world. Each stranger seems a saint.
A kid handing out flyers for her show asks me if I want a strawberry. She says she's saving them for the cast, but that I can have one.
I take it like communion, bless myself with a bit of kindness of strangers.
At the theatre, more madness. Running to and fro. No one sure what is going on.
And in the sweet darkness of the first blackout, we make our own magic.
At the Newport Folk Fest, Jon Batiste said, many times, "this is not a concert, it's a spiritual practice." I think that applies to life. It is not a trial we endure, it's a journey we actively experience. These past few days, I've seen music, heard colors, felt smiles... I've leapt through the looking glass into the mad world of the now.
And it's glorious.
I am a very lucky person. I know this. I think I always have been. Not to say I haven't had my share of tough times, tragedy, and turmoil. Times so bad I use alliteration when describing them. Still, I find this world so amazing. So magical.
I am sitting in a coffee shop in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the beginning of my first Edinburgh Fringe. So of course I am feeling good. Great. Grand. So wonderful I have to use alliteration to describe it. It's been about 48 hours so far. I've met many people. Walked many streets. Absorbed a lot of good mojo.
And it feels right.
Do you ever get that feeling when you are somewhere, doing something, and you think "this is where Ia m supposed to be. Right now. Right here.
Right.
Or Left, for my fellow left handed geniuses.
So much worry in the world. So much sorrow. So much to do.
I think the sadness in the world necessitates the joy. We have to live well, to cherish this life, in order to defend it properly. We have to know love and wonder. We have to. We have to always remember how amazing it is to be alive. Particularly in tough times.
And these are tough times. The planet is clearly fucked, environmentally speaking. Fascism seems to be on the rise. War is raging in various countries. Constantly. There are shootings, almost daily, in America. And death waits for us all.
But that is why I find it so easy to celebrate life.
I'm quite the preacher today. I imagine my happiness in a world gone mad can be quite annoying to folks.
Consider it my illness, my coping mechanism.
I can't and won't change my love of life. Why should I? Every time I let myself be myself, life turns out fantastic. Every damn time.
So.
On with the journey. The spiritual practice. The show.
Here's a song. It's By and By by Caamp. And yes, I just wrote a sentence with three "by"s in it. Yahoo!
Ever have one of those songs stick in your head but you only remember a tiny part of it? Happens to me all the time. And then I'll ask anyone and everyone: Do you know that songs that goes doo ba da do da da do da da-aa-ah?
And whomever I've asked will look at me like they think I just farted.
It's pretty much been that way my whole life.
A prime example. Fire on High by Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO. It's this instrumental song that you'd hear on FM radio back in the day. It's sort of scary and awesome and not one you find on a lot of top 40 stations, but I always thought it was cool. It wasn't one of my favorite songs. Not one I'd put on a mix tape or anything. Just a song that lodged itself in my brain long ago, to sleep like Rip Van Winkle, waiting to come back to the forefront of my mind and drive me to distraction.
That song came out in the other world known as the 1970s. Land of Happy Days, Viet Nam, Watergate, and leisure suits. A world I navigated on my bike and/or skateboard, traversing the streets of San Jose, obsessed with comic books, KISS, and after the Ralph Bashki animated version of it came out, the Lord of the Rings. I can recall hearing that song in my friend Chris Carver's family's garage. It had this backward tracking section that made you think maybe the devil could hear your thoughts while you listened to it.
If there was such a thing as the devil. And ever since The Excorcist came out, we were all pretty sure there was.
So, the song was part of the fabric of my childhood.
Cut to many years later. I'm in NYC. I haven't thought of that song since forever. I'm a starving artist, waiting tables at Bryant Park Grill behind the main branch of the New York Library, doing theatre down town, struggling to make ends meet, having the time of my life.
And that song pops into my head. Well, not the whole song. Just this one section where the orchestra goes: DUN DUN.... DUUUUUUUNNNNNN.
I start asking people if they know it.
And I get the "did you fart?" look everytime.
Years go by. I'll be at a party. I'll meet someone who seems knowledgeable all things music. I'll ask the question. I'll get the standard response.
Now, I was still drinking back then, so maybe my question was asked a bit more off key than I'd like, and a tad more garbled. At any rate, no one had a clue.
Was I mad? Had I invented this fake memory of this song with backwards tracks and a section that goes DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNN?
Years go by. I'm driving a rental car back to NYC after going to a wedding up in Connecticut. It's summer, and some radio station is playing all things seventies. And the song comes on the radio. The song! Now this is before cell phones, and there wasn't a note pad in the car, and I was on a bridge over the Harlem River in very heavy traffic. And worse, the song was in a long set of songs with no interruptions. I waited and waited, praying to the radio gods that they'd say who it was.
And they did! Finally, after what felt like hours.
Fire on High! I said it out loud, over and over, making sure I'd remember. My girlfriend at the time, who was in the car with me, did not find this amusing, and told me so in no uncertain terms.
So I stopped the car, opened the trunk, pulled out my backpack which had a notepad in it, and wrote the name of the song down.
The cars behind me didn't appreciate this.
I didn't care. I had found the Great Lost Song of the 1970s. I had found a dimensional door to the Carver's garage, to bell bottom jeans and AC/DC before Bon Scott died. To a piece of me.
I collect those pieces, work them into my various projects, shows I direct, roles I perform, scripts I write.
It informs who I am.
A deranged seeker of lost moments, an Indiana Jones of my own soul.
I'm taking a new show, Eigg the Musical, to the Edinburgh Fringe. I'll be writing another blog on that next, but wanted to let you all know we have an Indiegogo campaign, raising funds to feed the actors, cover expenses, and all that. More info here: https://igg.me/at/eiggmusical/x/3385268#/
I think there is a power in the universe, a creative force or mojo or zone of some type, that visits us at certain times, giving us clarity of purpose and vision, joy in what we do, and a feeling of being exactly where we are supposed to be doing precisely what we are meant to do. I've been thinking about that a lot lately, because I think I am in one of those times, one of those eddies in the cosmic river. I think this run started with the production of The Addams Family I did down in Parker with Sasquatch. One of those shows where everything clicked, top to bottom, and we all spoke in psychic shorthand to each other. It carried on into SpongeBob at StageDoor, Sound of Music also at the PACE, the Shakespeare Fest, and on and on. Even with a second round of Covid in the middle of that, I feel this connection to something larger than me. I don't know why, or really how, but I am not questioning it.
It's here now. In Eigg. In Burning the Old Man. In the Infinite Hallway. And I raise my cup of coffee to it with glee.
I am going with the flow, and consequently reaching my flow, my zone, my place.
Maybe it kicked into high gear the the Austin Film Festival, when I got pulled up in front of hundreds of fellow writers for a live recording of ScriptNotes and lost my mind and had a crowd chanting my name while I paraded up and down the floor like a Mad Dog Poet Visionary Lunatic.
Jesus, I am in love with myself, aren't I?
Well, why not? I think I love the Vibe in me, not me in the Vibe, so karmically speaking, I should be ok.
And if I'm not, I am sure at some point soon, Life will say "okay, enough of that, McAllister, here's a big steaming pile of sorrow. Enjoy."
But that hasn't happened yet.
No. I keep connecting, with myself, with my cast, my crew, my friends, my wife, and the universe in general.
This feeling is always a surprise to me. A miracle. A gift.
And also makes me say to myself "Of course! This is how it is, stupid! You really can make the best of life, and should, because as far as I know, this is it. Once around, and then off to Oz. So live it up, live it well, live it now, and sing as loud as you can."
There is a lot in this world that is crazy. So much. Death and War and Famine and Plague. As a species, we seem bent of destroying ourselves and the planet, with a sort of insane glee. The sky is poisoned, the oceans are warming, and there is so much awful shit we could and probably should run up and down the street all day every screaming, weeping, gnashing our teeth, and so on.
But I don't see the point in bemoaning our fate.
I think we have to remember what it is to be alive if we want to live. We have to revel in what joys are afforded us. We must embrace the mystic wonder of being a human being if we want to save humanity.
We need to get, and keep, our shit together.
This involves: listening to music; dancing at every opportunity; calling old friends we haven't called in forever; picking up instead of letting it go to voicemail when they call back; speaking up when we are hurt; calling out ourselves and our friends and loved ones when doing stupid shit like we all do from time to time; forgiving as much as we can; listening; letting go; being in the moment; not faking a thing.
Man, I might as well get out a soap box, whatever that is, stand on it, and be a street preacher of some sort.
I don't mean to be didactic, but I somehow manage to be just that, often.
Sorry.
I just feel so much energy and joy and love right now.
Also, it's my blog, and I can say whatever I want. I can post various photos from my life showing times of awareness that have meaning to me but might just look like random shots to you.
So be it.
May the photos and the Force be with you.
So here's a song from the summer of 1994. A seminal year in the story of my life. It's Mystery by Indigo Girls, and I dig it immensely. Still, after all these years. Still crazy. Still.
Marching on, regardless. What choice do we have? Things are crazy, always. World overheating. Unrest in Russia. Global Economy sort of uncertain. UFOs on their way. And most of us seem to pretend the shut down never happened, or was just some sort of nuisance that happened and is over.
Time for some musical theatre.
Which sounds a little crazy, I know, but that's how it is.
In October, I got approached by Heather Westenskow, a friend and frequent collaborator about directing a new show, EIGG THE MUSICAL, that would be going to Edinburgh Fringe. That's the biggest theatre festival in the world. Thousands of shows from all over the world. And it's in Scotland, land of haunted castles and Nessie. I've wanted to go there forever. I became a playwright at the New York International Fringe Festival, which was modeled in large part of the Edinburgh Fringe, and had some of the best experiences of my life doing shows there.
I with April Alsup, the show's composer, and she told me about the Isle of Eigg, a tiny speck on land in the Hebrides, which in 1997 became the first island to be bought by it's inhabitants from their overbearing landlord. Or Laird. So about five years ago, she teamed up with playwright Mark Sbani and they made a new musical all about it. I listened to the story, the music, the basic pitch, and said "yes, please".
I started gathering the cast. Had to be people who are super talented, funny, strange, and perfect for the show. I felt like Nick Fury, putting together the Avengers. Happily, being the Left Foot of Sasquatch Productions means I have worked with a lot of actors in the greater Denver area. Folks who I worked with on Addams Family, Sound of Music, Little Shop of Horrors, Wizard of Oz, to name just a few. Actors who I first worked with in high school shows up in Conifer at StageDoor or at the Denver JCC.
I know people.
It's quite a treat to call someone you've worked with and say "Hey, want to do a show in Scotland?".
Some of the cast I've worked with since they were in high school. Some I've met more recently. The criteria was simple. Be uber-talented and not crazy. If we are going to create a new show, fly across the ocean and spend two weeks together in Edinburgh, we need to all get along. One hundred percent. I have learned over my many years that surrounding yourself with people who challenge you, excite you, make laugh, and so on is not just something to say on an Instagram post, but the smartest thing you can do. Indeed, it's one of the guiding principles we use at Sasquatch.
And now, we are in the midst of it. Working out scenes and songs. Making those breakthroughs that come out of nowhere. Hitting those bumps in the road that frustrate to no end, only to find a way past them when we least expect it. Getting it together.
And I love it.
Every now and then, no too often but enough to keep me going, the universe will open up and say "this is where you are supposed to be, and this is what you are supposed to do." The night I met my wife. The summer of 1994. Now.
I lead a charmed life. I don't know why, but I'm not going to question it.
I bring all this up because the next month is all about the Eigg. You will be hearing more about it. About our show, our Indiegogo campaign, which will be going live later this week. About our previews at the Vintage Theatre.
About all sorts of shit involving Eigg.
Here's a song. It's from one of my all time favorite musicals, Sunday in the Park with George.
Having one of those mornings where I realize that what we really need to do, we writers, artists, thinkers, parents, children... is remember that we are human beings, first and foremost. We are at our best when we take care of each other, because that's part of the deal. When we deal with both the world we dream of and the one we live in now. When, on top of satisfying our immediate, usually no so brilliant needs like having a cookie or doom scrolling or whatever it is that isn't all that important and we know it isn't but still do it, we take a step back and deal with the here and now. We ourselves and each other. With both the pain and glory of life. And I know that seems simplistic, and of course it is-- super clear, obvious, a no shit Sherlock vibe--
And yet, I often forget that.
It's hard to not fret about the little things when you aren't sure what the little things are any more.
This happens to me all the damn time.
And then, also all the time but not quite as often, I'll remember that being alive is groovy. That I have lived a life, have friends, stories, moments in time. That I am genuine. That we all are. I do not subscribe to the idea that if everyone is special, no one is. That's a bullshit phrase born in fear and encouraged by people who want to sell you something that, according to them, is the thing you need to be special.
Fuck that.
I'm thinking on this for three main reasons.
Number One: I'm working on a show that's going to Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe. Eigg. (for more info on that, go HERE) And it's reminding me of why I chose to live the life I live. Because making theatre is hard, crazy, and at times, once in a while, magic. And the secret sauce to the magic is to just be in the moment, leaning in, using all the skills and structure while at the same time letting myself into the process- who I am, warts and all. And encouraging/celebrating everyone else in the show doing the same thing. We are doing that, kicking it in the ass, and having a hell of a time in the process. There will be come shows in Denver late July, then off to Scotland! More info will be on these pages soon.
Number Two: I just started work on a short film/proof of concept for Burning the Old Man with Tim McCracken. It's based on my play of the same name. Tim and I met for coffee, talked it over, and something in my brain exploded. I came home, started writing-- and I felt like some sort of magician, conjuring worlds and people. I haven't felt this creatively excited in a long time. A lot of writing is keeping structure in mind, format, using the logic of plot and all that. Which is vital. But I think without that spark that got you there in the first place, with out the vulnerable, strange me/you of it, whatever you're working on becomes a knock off, a bit of the same old thing, and not so exciting. I am finding the me/you in this. The words are flowing. More on this soon.
Number Three: I saw a movie yesterday. A big Hollywood blockbuster kind of movie. And it was fun. But it didn't have that organic, specific and therefore universal moment, that made me believe. And I need that, both in what I watch and what I write. If there isn't some moment that makes it clear, on an emotional level, that this thing is being made not just to make money but to express some aspect of the artists life, why should I give a shit.
Often, I find movies with flaws very inspiring.
So. that's today.
I plan to write more blog entries between now and Edinburgh. So stay tuned.
Here's a song that I think exemplifies sticking to the rules while not sticking to the rules, baring one's soul, and using the very specific to make the very universal. It's BoyGenius, who are fucking awesome, and the song is "Not Strong Enough".
Well, it's almost 2023. How the hell did that happen? Didn't I just arrive in NYC fresh from college? Aren't I still a student at San Jose State? Aren't we all still living every moment of our lives, from as far back as our memories can travel, to now?
What is going on here?
I have no idea. But, if I do indeed exists and this isn't all some sort of strange dream, then things are good. Life is fine and dandy. And since it is almost the end of the year, it is time for a little evaluation of the past year, of where I went, where I'm heading, and all that.
Isn't that what we all do?
So, this year.
I think I directed a few plays. And by a few, I mean a lot. Wedding singer. Wizard of Oz. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Rocky Horror Show. The Lightning Thief. SpongeBob Squarepants. The Addams Family.
I like directing. Let's me boss people around.
I also taught theatre, speech & debate, playwriting, and the basics of life, at places including The Denver Center for the Performing Arts; The Logan School for Creative Learning; and Reel Kids.
I like teaching. Let's me boss people around.
I also wrote. Mostly worked on Lunatics and Assholes, a pilot for a show that is sort of a paranormal metaphor for the past few years. And also worked on Out of the Past. That's more fantasy, another pilot that's a monster of the week kind of thing, which I am digging immensely.
I like writing. Let's me boss my little made up worlds around.
I suppose I like to boss.
Keeps me off the streets.
I also traveled quite a bit. California. New York. Wisconsin. Texas. Avalanche Ranch here in Colorado. Traveling, I think, is necessary in this life. Even if it's just a day long road trip to some town a few hours from where you live. You need to see something you don't see every day. Eat somewhere you've never eaten at before. Talk to a stranger. Look at mountain. Take a walk in a city you don't know.
It fills the soul.
Also went to a wedding in upstate New York. That was amazing. Weddings are another time when we all reflect on ourselves, where we've been, what we've done, and all that, but through the lens of our relationships.
And also where we stay up late dancing and laughing and having the time of our lives.
I always think of that line from Fiddler on the Roof. It takes a wedding to make us say let's live another day.
I say let's live another ten thousand or more.
Let's just live.
Let's travel and write and do what we love and talk to each other more and try to forgive and be forgiven, to hug more often, to be kinder when we talk about movies we didn't like, or a meal that maybe didn't go off as well as we had hoped.
The world is in a constant state of flux.
Let's be cool with that.
Also, I saw a ghost this year.
This is the second time I can say for sure I saw one. I wrote about the first one here:
The one I saw this year was during the Austin Film Festival, which is a thing I love and plan on doing every year for the rest of my life. Just fantastic. Anyway. I was watching the film The Lost King, which I really enjoyed, when I noticed a tall figure out of the corner of my eye, standing in the aisle, like they were waiting to enter the row and find a seat. I turned to see them better, and nobody was there. About half an hour later, I saw the same person out of the corner of my eye yet again. And again, when I turned to look, nobody was there. And then, a little later, I saw someone in white, tall, clearly walking up the aisle towards me.
And then they vanished.
Now, it was dark, and the theatre was packed, and I figured maybe I was mistaken.
But then I figured "No".
I saw something.
When the movie was over, I found the manager, and asked, feeling a bit ridiculous, if the theatre was haunted.
She smiled this knowing smile, and asked me what had happened. When I told her, she informed me that things happen there from time to time, and that yes, the theatre was indeed haunted.
I shouldn't have been too surprised. I had some kind of mojo going during the festival. Things kept happening to me that didn't seem real. I was on a live podcast and somehow got a room full of hundreds of screenwriters to spontaneously start chanting "Kelly! Kelly! Kelly!" over and over. I met some shockingly cool and distinguished members of the industry. And I made some great friends. All in a matter of days.
You can here that podcast, which was an episode of the excellent ScriptNotes, here:
All right. Brain still Covid-fied, world still mad, life still exuberant and strange, rising and falling like waves at the beach, and I still try to ride those waves like I did when I was a kid in the oh so cold waters of the Monterey Bay, usually at Natural Bridges State Park. The routine was always the same. Walk out, up to your knees, get up the necessary courage, then run in all the way, feeling the shock of the water with both glee and agony and above all an unbridled sense of being alive, in the moment, all other problems and thoughts banished by that cold cold water.
It is the only way to do it.
It's the same in the morning. The alarm goes off, and you wade in the shallow water of not quite awake yet, which can last an hour even though it only really lasts five minutes, and then, as your dreams run off in all directions to wherever it is dreams go, you get out of bed. At least I do. I get out of bed, heat up some old coffee, put the kettle on for a fresh pot, break out the journal, and pour what remnants of dreams are still in the noggin, and try to figure out on paper a sliver of my eternal soul.
It is the only way to do it.
Today, however, I did not do that. I let the alarm come and go like a show on my Netflix cue that I keep meaning to watch but never do. I slept another hour. When Lisa asked me if I was going to make coffee, I said no.
Very strange.
Like not breathing or being alive strange.
But I think the Covid is giving a good fight and not quite ready to cede the battle yet.
To which I say "fuck that".
I can't stand being in the shallow water, seeing waves in front of me, enticing and frightening in equal measure. People think I do a lot. I am always directing plays, teaching classes, working on a script. It's not that I am industrious or ambitious or have some wonderful work ethic handed down to me by some fairy tale version of Puritans.
No. I just can't stand in the shallows, feeling the tide on my legs, and not rush to those waves. I can't resist the ice cold water that reminds me I'm alive. I can't. And I don't.
This stupid virus has slowed me down for a week or so. It's done a number on the planet. On all of us, and that's just the way it is.
But the waves still crash, the water is still cold, and I am still alive.
Here's a song. It's the theme from The Rockford Files. Because it's bitchin'
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